Yet another excellent interview with Daniel Daniel Falatko about his book.

I come from New York of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and I left in 2010. I’m feeling pretty good about it right now because of this—

Yeah, well, in terms of New York City’s prime, I’m not necessarily saying that the early 2000s, mid-2000s, was like New York City’s prime, because I guess that probably would have been the 70s and 80s. However, it was the last gasp of that type of era when you could still live here as a non-rich person, as a person without a trust fund, as a person without a tech job. You could still drift through this city and live here as a poor person, a poor artist. It took some maneuvering, but you could do it. You could still have a band at that point. There were empty lofts that you could practice in. There were still independent music venues that weren’t taken over by Ticketmaster and Goldenvoice. There were all sorts of crazy poets and street people and loveable chancers drifting through the scene that could not and would not exist here today and have been pushed out for decades now.

For a long time, I mourned it, but also felt there was something wrong with me for not being able “to be with the flow” of my city—whatever it was becoming. It’s not me, after all. The wonderful ebb and flow of The Beat Generation is long gone now… something awful has replaced it. It’s not just that The City is for ‘young people.’ Turns out, that’s notit, at all.